Kenya’s Finance Bill contrary to its pledge on trade barriers

The gap between East Africa's integration rhetoric and its trade reality is usually measured in years. This time, it was measured in hours.

One day after Presidents Samia Suluhu Hassan and William Ruto stood together in Dar es Salaam and pledged to eliminate all remaining non-tariff barriers by June 30 – Kenya published its Finance Bill 2026. Buried in amendments to the First Schedule of the Excise Duty Act was a proposal to impose a 35 percent excise duty on glass bottles from EAC partner states, stripping away an exemption that Kenya's own Parliament had legislated in 2021 after losing a court case it should never have needed to fight.

The product at the centre of this dispute is unglamorous, but the principle is not.

Also Read

SMART WORLD: Udasa’s Cuba romance: When solidarity becomes complicity